This is a unique white wine. It has beautiful color. The aromas and flavors are slightly sweet ruby red grapefruit with a touch of melon. It has a just a hint of sparkle.

We tasted this one blind…

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When I poured this one, I could tell just by looking at it that it was going to be a great wine. It is a very clear, but dark purple in color.

The initial aroma has a touch of blueberry, which burns off to reveal a touch of earthiness, and leather under the fruit, which also includes dark cherry and black current.

In the mouth, it has a nice smooth texture; dark fruit is complemented quite nicely with black pepper. I think this will pair nicely with Mexican food.

The pepper builds on the finish, reaching a peak then falling off quite elegantly.

Nice ruby-red color, aromas include red currents, a touch of blueberry and a touch of leather.

In tasting it I can say that you can drink it now or let it sit another year or two. It is quite nice right now, so I say drink it!

It has a nice balance from start to finish, but it has a bit of sour cherry. It would pair well with a grilled steak dusted with freshly ground pepper, as the wine finishes with a bit of heat.

Nice purple color, not as deep in color as I expected, but quite nice. There is a hint of the age when held over a white background. This is better than I expected.

I opened it while it was fresh from the 55° F cellar. I think that I should have let it come to room temperature before opening it, as the aroma was not as pleasant as I had hoped for. It was in the arena of dirty socks. So I let it sit in the glass for about thirty minutes then came back to it. There was still a touch of mustiness, but under that, there was a touch of chocolate, a touch of red cherry, a lot of alcohol, a touch of tobacco, and a little blueberry.

I was disappointed with the flavors. There is no fruit left; it is all wood, alcohol, a lot of tannins. Perhaps I need to decant the thing and let it sit for a while longer. I’ll do that and resume tasting after a bit…

One interesting note on the decanting of this wine – there was no residue in the bottle. Not even a little bit.

Okay, so after being open an hour, I was ready to dump this down the drain, but I think that I read in a Perl manual something about laziness being a virtue. How true!

About an hour later, I decided to make beef tacos. I had the decanter sitting on the kitchen counter top, and as the ground beef was getting close to being ready, I decided that I needed to move the decanter out of the way. I caught a whiff, and said “Wait a minute, what was that?”

There was a lovely aroma cutting through the smell of the cooked meat, and I must say the combination was quite pleasing.

The funky, musty, okay, I’ll say it, the cat-piss aroma was long gone. In its stead is a nice floral, dark cherry, tobacco, chocolate, a touch of blueberry, and an ever so slight presence of pepper. Quite nice I would say.

In the mouth, it has smoothed out to be quite elegant and smooth. The tannin is still there, but it is well balanced. The flavors are chocolate, tobacco, or perhaps it is better described as “cigar box” a touch of smoke, and a bit of earth and minerals.

The finish is nice, with a lot of tobacco right at the end.

This wine is ready to drink now, and as I think back to about mid-2001, when I bought it, I remember these flavors in a much too young wine, but even then worthy of purchase, and I think that storing it until now has really paid off.

2001 Witch Creek Le Mirage

Let this one sit open a bit. It will open nicely.

1998 Chateau Le Calilio Pomerol

Very nice, very smokey.

If you let it open up for a while, you will be rewarded with an elegant, beautiful wine.

2002 Ross Estate Barossa Valley Reserve Shiraz

This one is not quite ready to drink yet. If you open it now, you will find it is a little harsh on the finish, but I think in a couple of years, this will be awesome!

2000 Per Sempre Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

Nice, but nothing to write home about.

This is currently running at about $15 and at that price it is a steal. Get it fast, as I think the brand is about to disappear.

2003 Rosenblum Rockpile Road Vineyard Zinfandel

What can I say that the big-time wine magazine has not?

If you have this one in your cellar, consider yourself lucky, if not, too bad – you’ll probably never see it again on the shelf.

A&D’s mystery wine

Yeah, not quite a 100% Zinfandel says me!

Right, it has a little Petite Syrah to tame that high alcohol!

The majority agree that this is nothing less than a future Gold medal winner.

What can I say, for $240 it ought to taste great, right?

It did!

I started by decanting it, with the candle showing the way of course, an hour or so before consumption.

At the first sip, someone said that it seemed like it took the enamel off of their teeth.

My feelings exactly – this is truly a HUGE wine!

But it is also a sipping wine, to be savored over time with good friends, and good conversation.

As it opened up it smoothed out – a lot!

Andrea Immer says that this is a once in a lifetime wine. It would be a shame to limit it thusly.

I say get some friends together and share the cost. And even though it should sit another five to twenty-five years, I say drink it now. You might die tomorrow!

The host asked what we thought we were drinking.

The first guess was that it was a Merlot.

Not in my mouth it wasn’t, as this was an amazing wine, and definitely not a typical Merlot.

So I dissented, and was asked for my thoughts.

I said, I think this is a classic Rhone varietal blend (of the American style of course), I said that it was probably a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mouvedre.

Nailed it – of course!

But I have to admit that I was a bit wrong because there is more Syrah than Grenache. But it is very spicy, with tons of dark fruit. Very smooth, very elegant. Got to get me some more.

If I was stuck on a desert island and only could choose one wine to take with me, this might be the one, as I don’t think that I would ever tire of it.

Where the heck did this come from?

I was looking for something to finish my pizza with and this was on the middle shelf, right under the white wines.

In my system that means that I didn’t pay much for it, and I don’t expect much out of it. In other words, a good pizza wine.

But HOLY COW! It is very much ready to drink right now!

If you like your Zinfandels on the hot side, then this Meritage is for you. It says 13.5% on the bottle, but they lied. It has to be pushing 15%. It is a very nice dark purple with nice vicious legs. (Thus my thinking that it is higher than published on the alcohol!)

I say it is ready to drink now, because in another few months, the dark cherry will turn to raisins.

This one is velvety-smooth and elegant.

The label lists the blend as 73% Cabernet Sauvignon and 27% Merlot. From the Alexander Valley. There is just a touch of the Alexander Valley flavor there still, but catch it fast, as it is going to fade on you.

Drink it now with your favorite home-made pizza!

A good pizza wine, but nothing special.

This is a nice $20 (plus or minus) Cabernet Sauvignon. I would buy it again, but I probably like the Stonestreet Cabernet just a little better.

If you are looking for a nice wine to accompany spaghetti or pizza, you could do a lot worse than this one!

$70

I removed the foil from around the top of the bottle so I could check the condition of the cork. I was quite pleased, as the color of the wine had moved up about one quarter of the height of the cork. The bottle and label were in good condition.

I had to use a cheap corkscrew to open this one, and the cork broke at about the half-way point. But the cork was soft, and there was no sign of leakage. The bottom portion of the cork was easily removed.

The color is surprisingly bright considering the age of this wine. I expected a touch of brown to indicate that the wine is fourteen years old, but it looked more like a two-year old wine.

The initial aromas were current and chocolate. Later, a nice cherry aroma was evident.

The wine has a great mouth feel. This is a big wine with nice tannins, and not too soft. It is elegant, with nice current, chocolate, cherry and a touch of leather and wood.

This wine was the perfect choice for a prime-cut steak. The only bad thing about this wine is that it is now gone…

$50

It’s wines like this one that will ruin Cabernet Franc’s image as being only a blending grape.

Dark purple in color with a clear ring around the outside. This one could probably stand to age a couple of years or twenty. It has lovely dried or dark cherries and tobacco in the nose.

Very nice, well balanced flavors of dark cherry, plum, tobacco, a hint of blueberry. It finishes nicely with perhaps just a touch of pepper at the end.

This wine is quite nice.

EOS wine notes

This wine is ripe, ready to drink right now. There is a bit of cherry and plum in the aroma. The flavors are ripe cherry, and other dark berries. There is a nice spice on the finish.

Quite nice!

http://www.ojaivineyard.com/02/chcp02.htm

I’m tempted to not say anything about this one, as I’d like to keep it to myself. I’ve tried several wines from the Ojai Vineyard over the last year, and each was amongst the best that I’ve tasted.

This one has great balance – mellow butter and vanilla but definitely not over-oaked. There is a nice touch of spice on the finish, which I really like also.

You probably won’t find this one at your local wine store, but that’s okay because that leaves more for me!

What can I say – a perfect Chardonnay.

The aromas are creamy butter, with an emphasis on the cream and there is also a touch of pear or peach.

In the mouth, it is quite elegant. The creaminess continues with some light fruit and a nice touch of minerals.

A very long finish turns to a bit of spice, with a little touch of cinnamon.

Very nice indeed.

2001 Whitehall Lane Napa Merlot $26

Blind tasting notes – no knowledge of varietal, appellation or vintage.
There was a touch of acetate in the nose, but it wasn’t objectionable. The taste was nice and the finish had nice smoke and tobacco. If I have to drink a Merlot, this one would be one of my top choices.

2001 Provenance Rutherford Napa Cabernet Sauvignon $25

Blind tasting notes – no knowledge of varietal, appellation or vintage.
The one note that I have for this one says there is a lot of alcohol in this one. I liked it a lot, and it scored high on my sheet.

2000 Chateau Ronan Red Bordeaux $15

Blind tasting notes – no knowledge of varietal, appellation or vintage.
Someone said “barnyard” and we immediately said “Bordeaux.” This wine tied my highest score for the night. I would buy this one.

2002 Blackjack Ranch Double Down Syrah $9

Blind tasting notes – no knowledge of varietal, appellation or vintage.
Okay, our table totally blew guessing what this one was, and we really hated it. Most of the room liked this one, and one person told me that they thought this was “quite interesting.” So that being said, this wine got my worst score for the evening. I smelled chlorine, wet dog, cardboard and mustiness. (I don’t think it was corked.) I thought the taste was fair, and the finish horrible. I think that it would be fair for me to try this one again as I thought there was something wrong with it.

2003 Seghesio Sonoma County Zinfandel $13

Blind tasting notes – no knowledge of varietal, appellation or vintage.
I was embarrassed that I missed this one, as I have some in my cooler, and recently visited the Seghesio winery. The appearance was fantastic, the aroma includes nice dark cherry and a hint of chocolate. The taste and texture are perfect. I would have liked to have some spice in the finish. This is very nice and among my top scorers for the evening.